Google Doodle Honors the Giant Kelp Forests of the Great Southern Reef

This Doodle honors the Great Southern Reef’s enormous kelp forests, which cover Tasmania’s and Australia’s southern shores. On this day in 2019, Mission Blue formally designated the Great Southern Reef as a new Hope Spot.

Tropical coral reefs, such as the Great Barrier Reef, the famous neighbor of the Great Southern Reef, are most likely what most people envision when they think of reefs. Australia is more than 8,000 kilometers below the Great Southern Reef. Its rocky reef structure is joined with kelp, a seaweed that grows quickly and resembles leaves. Seafloor creatures like stingrays, spider crabs, and rock lobsters find refuge in kelp, which grows well in cold, slowly flowing water.

Scuba divers and other ocean lovers travel from all over the world to the Great Southern Reef because of its stunning environment. The biggest danger to this wonder of nature is the changing climate. On top of the reef are two regions where the ocean has warmed extraordinarily quickly. Upscaling, a technique that involves establishing self-sustaining seed patches that grow where kelp once was, is one of the marine restoration initiatives now in progress.

Here’s to protecting this wonder of nature!